Physician assisted suicide should be banned because it is illegal and goes against the Hippocratic Oath.
Physician assisted suicide must be banned because it directly contradicts the Hippocratic Oath. The Hippocratic Oath is an oath taken by physicians historically to uphold specific ethical standards. World renowned and well respected physician, scientist and educator, Dr. Leon Kass believes physician assisted suicide is wrong. According to Dr. Kass, “the prohibition against killing patients stands as the first promise of self-restraint sworn to in the Hippocratic Oath as medicine’s primary taboo.” Another Physician, Josef Kure, Head of the Department of Medical Ethics at Masaryk University (Czech Republic) believes that “the killing …show more content…
According to Ryan T. Anderson from Newsweek, “Every human being has intrinsic dignity and worth. For our legal system to work this dignity and worth must apply to everyone equally. In order for assisted suicide to be legal, a subgroup of people would have to be made legally “eligible” to be killed. “This violates our nation’s commitment to equality before the law.”” Those people who are deemed “legal” to be killed are often the weak and marginalized of society. Assisted suicide endangers these people. Where physician assisted suicide has been allowed, it has proven very difficult to implement and enforce safeguards that would minimize the risk to this group, the very people that the law needs to protect. Additionally, over time these safeguards prove inadequate and become watered down or eliminated. People who deserve society’s assistance are instead offered accelerated death. Classifying a subgroup of people as legally eligible to be killed shows profound disrespect for and callousness to those who will be judged to have lives no longer “worth living”, not least the frail, elderly, the demented and the disabled. A legal system that allows assisted suicide abandons the natural right to life of all its citizens. This evidence shows that physician suicide is wrong because because it causes some people's lives to be valued more than others and creates an imbalance among people
Physician assisted suicide must be banned because it directly contradicts the Hippocratic Oath. The Hippocratic Oath is an oath taken by physicians historically to uphold specific ethical standards. World renowned and well respected physician, scientist and educator, Dr. Leon Kass believes physician assisted suicide is wrong. According to Dr. Kass, “the prohibition against killing patients stands as the first promise of self-restraint sworn to in the Hippocratic Oath as medicine’s primary taboo.” Another Physician, Josef Kure, Head of the Department of Medical Ethics at Masaryk University (Czech Republic) believes that “the killing …show more content…
According to Ryan T. Anderson from Newsweek, “Every human being has intrinsic dignity and worth. For our legal system to work this dignity and worth must apply to everyone equally. In order for assisted suicide to be legal, a subgroup of people would have to be made legally “eligible” to be killed. “This violates our nation’s commitment to equality before the law.”” Those people who are deemed “legal” to be killed are often the weak and marginalized of society. Assisted suicide endangers these people. Where physician assisted suicide has been allowed, it has proven very difficult to implement and enforce safeguards that would minimize the risk to this group, the very people that the law needs to protect. Additionally, over time these safeguards prove inadequate and become watered down or eliminated. People who deserve society’s assistance are instead offered accelerated death. Classifying a subgroup of people as legally eligible to be killed shows profound disrespect for and callousness to those who will be judged to have lives no longer “worth living”, not least the frail, elderly, the demented and the disabled. A legal system that allows assisted suicide abandons the natural right to life of all its citizens. This evidence shows that physician suicide is wrong because because it causes some people's lives to be valued more than others and creates an imbalance among people